For several months the Webmaster has been preoccupied with business issues, so less new material has been added than previously. Critically useful information is to be found in the sections indexed at the left. Notwithstanding the looming threat of yet another major war over oil, here are a few highlights from 2002:

Tough Year, but the Oil and Gas Kept Flowing. BP issues its annual statistical review (details, pdf). Highlights: Total world reserves=1050.0 Gb of which OECD=85.0 (old and in the way), OPEC=818.8 (with false reserves a significant fraction), and Non-OPEC=165.8 ("diversity"). And UK "production" is down 6.6% [June 18]

Oil Experts Draw Fire for Warning. Global crude supplies could peak by 2010, warned participants in the two-day conference on oil depletion that began Thursday at Uppsala University, Sweden, Bruce Stanley, AP Business Writer • Abstracts of Presentations • ASPO Press release [

Is FSU Oil Growth Sustainable? Read about the present oil price war between OPEC and Russia, Jean Laherrère, Petroleum Review [April]

"It appears that total [oil] discovery in 2001 was about 8 Gb including deepwater oil, and NGL. Although there remain the eternal uncertainties about the reliability of the data, it appears that the world's oil account has been running a deficit since 1981, as it continues to eat into its inheritance from past discovery....

Now an MIT publication quotes an "expert" from Stanford arriving at an astounding conclusion, with incredible logic: Since predictions of an oil crisis have proven wrong in the past, we therefore have little to worry about. The author got one part right: "Years of cheap oil have slowed energy innovation to a crawl." [January/February]

• Read Additional links to information from the year 2001.
• Read Additional links to information from the year 2000 and earlier.